Reports

The federal estate tax has reached historic lows. In 2019, only 8 of every 10,000 people who died left an estate large enough to trigger the tax. Legislative changes under presidents of both parties have increased the basic exemption from the estate tax over the past 20 years. This has cut the share of adults leaving behind taxable estates down from more than 2 percent to well under 1 percent.

Leading localities are using refundable EITCs to boost incomes and reduce taxes for workers and families with low and moderate incomes. These local credits build on the success of EITCs at the federal and state levels, reduce economic hardship and improve the fairness of the tax code.

The Supreme Court is set to hear what could become one of the most important tax cases in a century. If decided broadly—with a ruling that strikes down the Mandatory Repatriation Tax for corporations, effectively making it unconstitutional to tax unrealized income—the Roberts Court’s decision in Moore v. US could stretch far beyond the plaintiffs themselves and would put in legal jeopardy many laws that prevent corporations and individuals from avoiding taxes and level the economic playing field.

Expanding the federal Child Tax Credit to 2021 levels would help nearly 60 million children next year. It would help the lowest-income children the most and would particularly help children and families of color.

The Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act would reform the taxes that Americans pay to finance these two important programs so that the richest 2 percent of Americans pay these taxes on most of their income the way that middle-class taxpayers already do.

Since TCJA expanded tax breaks for “accelerated depreciation” starting in 2018, it has reduced taxes by nearly $67 billion for the 25 profitable corporations that benefited the most. Congress is now looking at extending this policy.

Circuit breaker credits are the most effective tool available to promote property tax affordability. These policies prevent a property tax “overload” by crediting back property taxes that go beyond a certain share of income. Circuit breakers intervene to ensure that property taxes do not swallow up an unreasonable portion of qualifying households’ budgets.

The push by Congressional Republicans to make the provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent would cost nearly $300 billion in the first year and deliver the bulk of the tax benefits to the wealthiest Americans.

State governments provide a wide array of tax subsidies to their older residents. But too many of these carveouts focus on predominately wealthy and white seniors, all while the cost climbs.

In his latest budget proposal, President Biden proposes enhancing the Child Tax Credit (CTC) based on the temporary credit that was in effect for 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan Act. In this report we analyze how that proposal would help children and families.

President Biden’s latest budget proposal includes trillions of dollars of new revenue that would be paid by the richest Americans, both directly through increases in personal income, Medicare and estate taxes, and indirectly through increases in corporate income taxes.

Regardless of future Child Tax Credit developments at the federal level, state policies can supplement the federal credit to deliver additional benefits to children and families. State credits can be specifically tailored to meet the needs of local populations while also producing long-term benefits for society as a whole

More than one in four dollars of wealth in the U.S. is held by a tiny fraction of households with net worth over $30 million. Nationally, we estimate that wealth over $30 million per household will reach $26 trillion in 2022 with roughly one-fifth of that amount ($4.5 trillion) held by billionaires.

While the Inflation Reduction Act's corporate minimum tax is a huge improvement in our tax system, implementing the global corporate minimum tax would improve it much more. And if other governments implement the global minimum tax, the United States will have an even stronger interest in joining them to ensure that new revenue collected from American corporations flows to the U.S. rather than to other countries.

The Romney Child Tax Credit plan would leave a quarter of children worse off compared to current law and help half as many low-income children as the 2021 expansion of the credit.

The South's negative outcomes on measures of wellbeing are the result of a century and a half of policy choices. Lawmakers have many options available to make concrete improvements to tax policy that would raise more revenue, do so equitably, and generate resources that could improve schools, healthcare, social services, infrastructure, and other public resources.

President Biden's latest budget plan includes proposals that would raise $2.5 trillion in new revenue. While many of these reforms appeared in his previous budget, some of them are brand new, such as his proposal to prevent basis-shifting in partnerships and his Billionaires Minimum Income Tax.

The Biden administration has several options to address tax reform even when Congress is unable or unwilling to help.

A proposal from Sen. Rick Scott would increase taxes for more than 35% of Americans, with the poorest fifth of Americans paying 34% of the tax increase.

More than one in three young adults would benefit from workers without children being eligible to receive the federal EITC. This policy change would bolster young adults’ economic security.

The United States needs to raise more tax revenue to fund investments in the American people. This revenue can be obtained with reforms that would require the richest and wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share to support the society that makes their fortunes possible.

If the bill becomes law, in 2022 federal taxes would go up for the average taxpayer among the richest one percent and down for the average taxpayer in other income groups.

The fiscal implications of a decline in commercial property values are important because the property tax is the dominant local source of taxes, and commercial property makes up a significant portion of the property base in cities.

10 state personal income tax reforms that offer the most promising routes toward narrowing racial income and wealth gaps through the tax code.

There are several ways that the House leadership could avoid this problem. One approach is for lawmakers to replace the SALT cap with a different kind of limit on tax breaks for the rich that actually raises revenue and avoids disfavoring some states compared to others as the SALT cap does. ITEP has suggested a way to do this.